Cat Café Provides Training for People with Disabilities

Pause Cat Cafe’s mission is kindness, and not just for their twelve rescue cats.

The café in Bournemouth also run projects to help the local community.

Since Pause Cat Café opened last February, they have been helping disabled people develop their skills through volunteer placements in the café.

People have been learning tasks like serving customers, wrapping cutlery and preparing the tables. The volunteers, who have conditions ranging from autism and Asperger’s to sight loss and physical disabilities, gain confidence and improve their people skills as well as learning tasks that can help them to be more employable.

The café works with a number of local charities and training providers, and have a number of volunteers.

Ellie, who recently found love on Channel Four’s ‘The Undateables’, volunteers at the cafe twice a week.

Ellie, who recently found love on ‘The Undateables’, volunteers at the cafe.Photo: Pause Cat Cafe

“I enjoy working in the cat cafe,” says Ellie. “I like playing with the cats and I like telling my friends that I work in the café.”

Pause are hoping to be able to extend their kitchen soon and make it disability friendly by creating wheelchair access and safety-proofing certain areas to allow people of all abilities to be trained in working with food. Click here to find out more.